US Patent Office Has Granted Patents for Perpetuum Mobile

[gaby de wilde]

If he can't be contacted it would seem like a short case. You can just file a patent with the exact same device and if he doesn't object to it then you are free to do what you like basically.

For example Yull brown didn't invent browns gas but William A. Rhodes was to late with claiming ownership of the patent.

[shruggedatlas]

If he can't be contacted it would seem like a short case. You can just file a patent with the exact same device and if he doesn't object to it then you are free to do what you like basically.

For example Yull brown didn't invent browns gas but William A. Rhodes was to late with claiming ownership of the patent.

It does not work that way in the U.S..  One thing the USPTO examiners actually are good at is looking at other patents for prior art.  (They typically do no other prior art searches.)  If you had an exact same device, it would be found pretty quick, and the patent would be rejected unless you could provide a valid argument for why your device is different.

[gaby de wilde]

the patent would be rejected unless you could provide a valid argument for why your device is different.

Just make it better.

It's fun to put the patent office in limbo where they get to say you don't get a patent for a perpetual motion device AND that the device is already patented.

Before you get it to work you have a lot of time to find him anyway.

[Omnibus]

I have to repeat it once again, this isn't just any kind of a non-working device. This is outright non-scientific. Show me another instance of a patented device violating scientific principles. I'd really like to hear from the US Patent Office that they don't care whether a claim is scientific or not and that just prior art matters. That will be the day.

[shruggedatlas]

I did a little digging.  Here is another magnet power generator patent (No. 6,362,718):

http://www.google.com/patents?id=-64KAAAAEBAJ&dq=6,362,718

I doubt this one works either.

And about the USPTO and PPMs:  The USPTO has had a longstanding policy that anyone seeking a patent for a perpetual motion device must have a working model.  This policy was put into place because many unscrupulous persons were using the guise of a patent as validation of their technology and were duping investors in this way.

For more info on this as well as more examples of PPMs/energy generators which have been granted patents refer to:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Perpetual_motion

So Omnibus is partially right in that it is a concern that someone does not use a patent to claim his or her device is legitimate.  However, I hope it is clear now that it is not so much a concern of the USPTO that patents are only granted on workable ideas, because this is clearly not the case, as little effort is made to validate the feasibility of other types of inventions.

Omnibus, if you want the USPTO to be a certifying body, then all I can say is: write your Congressman.